


Love, Flowers, and Other Blooming Things

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Falling In Love, Light Angst, M/M, References to Addiction, Vague Knowledge of The Care and Keeping of Plants, basically what it says on the tin, brief appearances by - Freeform, helene - Freeform, max - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: Taking up gardening as a way to recover from addiction, Adam Jones lends his green thumb to the local nursery. Largely of the opinion that plants are superior to people, he still can't seem to stop himself from being drawn to Tony Balerdi -- the odd customer who appears every week, like clockwork, to buy a bouquet of flowers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Jake. If friends were flowers, I'd always pick you <3

Adam is elbow-deep in the nursery, accumulating a steady pile of uprooted weeds among the rows of snapdragons and pansies, when Helene appears. At the edge of his vision, she has that familiar knot of worry between her eyebrows, tucking her cellphone back into the pocket of her jeans.

“Lily’s been sick at school --”

And Adam likes Helene, likes her serious, wide-eyed daughter who visits after school to help carefully poke seeds into the loamy potting soil. He is trying to be a nicer person these days. “Go,” he insists. “I’ll handle things here.”

“Are you sure? I hate to leave you here alone.” She is a whirlwind as Adam follows her into the store-proper, tangled in her apron strings, brushing the worst of the dirt from her knees. “But the nurse said she’s running a fever --”

“It’s fine,” Adam assures her. There are no holidays, no proms, no wedding orders with deadlines. It’s a Tuesday afternoon and the shop is empty. “Seriously, go take care of Lily.”

“I can call Max --”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to call Max.”

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” 

“No.” Adam can handle this much at least, minding the quiet shop for a few hours. “Say ‘hi’ to Lily for me.” And he pushes Helene toward the door as she digs through the chaos of her purse in search of car keys.

“Thank you, Adam. Seriously.” She pauses just long enough to stretch up on her tiptoes and press a kiss to his stubble-rough cheek. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

And then she is gone, disappearing out the front door with the bell chiming in her wake.

It is only Adam and the plants.

He keeps himself busy sweeping loose dirt and shed leaves from the floor, tending to the endless cuttings and pots of greenery. The pots of geraniums need to be rotated out of the windows where they are getting too much sun, some of the begonias have been over-watered, and the peacock plants need coddling lest their leaves start to brown.

He likes the work; planting, growing things, crafting the floral arrangements. It had just been something to do at first, a suggestion from his therapist in those first few weeks when he had decided that this time he would get sober and he would mean it. 

“Get yourself a plant -- something hardy.” Rosshilde had even gone so far as to write on her prescription pad, ‘ _ plant, quantity: 1 _ ’ staring him down over the thick rims of her spectacles. “I want you to keep it alive. Water, sunlight, play music to it. Set yourself a schedule, and every week you come back, I want to hear how it’s growing.”

Acerbic and hollowed-out without the buzz of cocaine beneath his skin, Adam had slouched in the armchair. Disdainful and embittered. “What the hell does a houseplant have to do with my recovery?”

“It gives you something to live for that doesn’t involve chasing a high.”

And so Adam had gone out, with the prescription page dog-earred and crumpled in the pocket of his jacket, and found himself a houseplant at  _ Jean Luc’s Garden Florals _ . Tucked away, half-forgotten, he’d found himself the most pathetic-looking jade plant -- half-wilted and yellowed -- and carried the thing home in the crook of his arm.

“Yeah, we both kind of look like shit don’t we, buddy?” He’d installed the struggling little plant in a sunny spot at the corner of the kitchen counter, watered the parched soil. “That’s okay. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

He might have ignored it, might have left the thing to shrivel and die on the counter top, but the idea had lingered in the back of his mind -- something to think about that wasn’t the desperate junkie begging for a fix still rattling in his skull. Somehow, he had found himself tending to it, reading blogs and forums, searching soil conditions and sunlight requirements and what to do about the limp, wilting leaves.

The plant had thrived.

And one had multiplied into two. Then four. Ten.

Finally, Jean Luc had given in and simply offered him a job.

Humming to himself, Adam rearranges the displays, checking over the azaleas that have stubbornly refused to bloom. There is one in particular, sulking amid a pile of shed leaves, that clearly requires attention. “Christ,” Adam says, scooping up the languishing plant. “You’re looking pathetic.” 

Amid bits of ribbon and bouquet wrappings in the back room, kicking at loose petals and stem cuttings that litter the floor, he sets the faucet running. The basin of the sink fills steadily as he undoes the shiny pink-foil wrapping around the outside of the plastic pot. 

“C’mon,” he coaxes, trying not to jostle the azalea too much lest any more leaves shake loose. “You’re not dead yet -- we’ll give you a good dunking and you’ll perk right up.”

In the shop, the doorbell chimes.

“God damn it --  _ just a second _ !” 

The aerated pot sprinkles dirt down the front of his green  _ Jean Luc’s Garden Florals _ polo when Adam lifts the plant, dunking it pot and all into the sink. He holds it there, submerged, until no more bubbles shiver to the surface. And, drying his hands on his apron, he leaves the azalea to sit for a while -- will wrap it all up again it it’s paper and ribbons later. 

Plants don’t ask questions. They don’t talk back. Their needs are simple, easy to figure out. People, though -- people drive Adam nuts.

“Can I help you?” There is not an ounce of customer-service friendliness in Adam’s voice, and this is why they keep him in the nursery.

The man on the other side of the counter -- short, slender, and clearly professional in his tailored navy suit -- offers Adam a small smile, inclining his head. “Hello.” A soft, lilting accent. Spanish? “I was -- sorry, is Helene not here? I’m looking for some flowers.”

“We don’t sell flowers.” The retort, sharply annoyed, slips out before Adam can catch himself. Helene is going to kill him.

“Oh?” And it should be ridiculous, the businessman’s suit and highly unimpressed arch of an eyebrow in contrast with the softly boyish curves of his face. A teenager wearing dad’s dress clothes. But somehow, it just makes him seem particularly impish -- especially when he smirks at Adam and says “forgive me, I did not realize I had stepped into the Not-a-Florist’s. Perhaps I should try the deli next door, yes?”

For a moment, Adam is too stunned to say anything at all. Then he cracks up. “Look,” he says. Delighted. Laughing brightly. And he manages to be at least a little bit apologetic. “I’m just fucking with you. This is why they don’t let me out of the back. Helene’s out for the day -- something in particular I can help you with?”

Relaxing a little, his would-be customer nods. “Yes. A bouquet.”

“I think I can probably manage that.” Adam digs around behind the counter for the thin, green tissue paper. “Got a preference?”

He takes a moment, letting his gaze wander the bursts of color and greenery, a little uncertain. Considering. “How about these?” One slender finger singles out the pale swells of thick blossoms.

Peonies.

Adam adds several to the paper, the way Helene had taught him, arranging white sprigs of baby’s breath and glossy ferns into a neatly wrapped bouquet, all the while aware of the steady, ochre eyes watching his every move.

“You are new here?” The question is hesitantly proffered, curious.

“Nah,” Adam ties the bouquet with ribbon, takes a moment to admire his own handiwork as he calculates the price. “Been here a couple months now, but I don’t work up front much. Jean Luc’s said it’s something to do with being a  _ pain in the ass _ and  _ bad for customer service _ , can you believe that?” 

His crooked smirk is returned with equal mirth. “I cannot possibly imagine where he might have gotten such an idea.”

Unexpectedly, Adam finds himself enjoying the banter. “Anything else?”

“No.” And it almost seems that he has to shake himself, blinking a few times at Adam, uncomprehending. “No, that’s… it looks perfect. Thank you.”

The hand that offers him the card is slender, long-fingered -- a pianist’s hands. Adam is acutely aware of the dirt beneath his fingernails, the scrapes across the backs of his hands from twigs and hidden thorns.

“Enjoy.”

Another impish, cheerful smile tossed over his shoulder in the sunlight spilling through their front windows. “I will.”

Adam watches him go, realizes there is dirt still clinging to the front of his green polo. He isn’t sure why it matters so much.

The next day, he brings it up with Helene -- their single afternoon customer, curious and amusing, who had known her name.

They are troweling out divets in the damp potting soil, planting tulip bulbs along the row and he offers casually “someone was in yesterday, asking for you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” For some reason, he has stuck fast in Adam’s mind. “Suit, Bambi eyes, kinda squishy lookin’?”

And Helene laughs, brushing the fringe from her eyes with the back of her wrist. “You mean  _ Tony _ ?”

“I dunno.” Adam studies her out of the corner of his eye, teasing. “How many men do you know who fit that description?”

“Just the one,” Helene assures him, dropping another teardrop-shaped bulb into his open palm. “Tony Balerdi -- we were in school together, he comes ‘round the shop every Tuesday.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Someone’s got a crush?”

“Oh, please.” Helene scoffs, but her voice is fond. “He used to get daffodils every week for his mum when she was in the hospital. Did the same thing for his dad when he passed -- I think it’s just habit for him now. I hope you didn’t scare him off?”

As it turns out, Adam has done no such thing.

Tony is back the next Tuesday, just as Helene had said, and this time it is Adam and Max struggling with unwieldy pallets of brilliantly colored pansies destined for a landscaping project. The van is idling at the curb, the two of them bickering over whether or not it is actually possible to fit all three pallets into the van at once.

“Hey!” Adam grunts as he wrestles with the flowers, favoring Tony with a grin and a jerk of his chin toward the shop entrance. “Five minutes, okay? I’ll be right there.”

Leaning against the bumper of the delivery van, Max gives him a curious look -- just a slow, silent lift of his eyebrows. 

They load the last of the flowers quickly.

Dusting the detritus from his apron, Adam offers Max a quick salute, jogging back into the shop. “Hey, Tony, sorry about that --  you thinking peonies again?”

“I…” His head jerks up from an examination of their bench of slender, blooming orchids, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead. “You know my name.”

“Oh?” Adam blinks. “Oh, yeah. Helene.”

“Ah.” There is something nervous about Tony Balerdi, a slight awkwardness in the way he ducks his head, scratches at the tip of his nose.

“So.” Adam draws out the word, not sure what else to say. “Peonies?”

Tony hesitates, his warm eyes wandering the expanse of the shop. Uncertain. “I was thinking, maybe something a little brighter this time? Maybe these?” And he points to the clusters of yellow button flowers, cut and arranged in their display.

Adam circles the counter, drawing out the green tissue paper. “I hate you.”

“I -- excuse me?” Tony straightens, alarmed.

“Tansies,” Adam clarifies, nodding to the flowers. “They mean ‘I hate you’.”

That startles a laugh out of Tony, a bright, delightful sound. “I had no idea” he admits, grinning crookedly. “Perhaps I should let you choose then, since you are the expert.”

Adam shrugs, but his amusement is infectious. “Less ‘expert’ and more ‘enthusiast’,” he tells Tony “but I think we can throw together a bouquet for you that isn’t as likely to be cause for offense.”

“Well then, I will bow to your superior knowledge --” 

“Adam. Adam Jones.”

Tony watches with quiet interest as Adam hunts through the rows and rows of flowers, selecting purple-blue hyacinths. Larkspur in pale and brilliant pink. “Adam.” He seems to roll the name over his tongue --  _ Ah-dam _ \-- savoring the sound of it.

He rearranges the flowers a few times in the bouquet, balancing the mix of brilliant colors to show off the best of the blossoms. “There.” At last, Adam holds up the bouquet for inspection, pleased with himself.  “Hyacinth and larkspur. How’s that look?”

“Lovely.” And, it might just be the way the sunlight catches him, but there is a faint flush high on Tony’s cheeks. “I hope these do not have some unfortunate hidden meaning?”

“Nah.” Adam ties off the bundle, punches it into the register. “Levity. Playfulness.” It seems oddly appropriate.

“Ah.” Tony passes his card across the counter with a smile.

He is in three more times -- always on a Tuesday, never before two o’clock -- and Adam finds himself looking for excuse to be at the counter each and every time. And, each time, Tony seems to linger a little bit longer. He leans on the counter, trading volleys of amused, sarcastic banter back and forth, watching as Adam constructs sample wedding bouquets, sweeps up the stray flower petals. 

Tony is easy to talk too, funny, and -- in the thick of prom season -- Adam finds himself descending into the familiar rant about corsages and boutonnieres and freaking  _ teenagers _ .

“I mean,” he is rambling, trying to make Tony laugh that startled, sparkling chuckle of his again. “I don’t mind putting ‘em together, y’know with the pins and elastic and the ribbons, but if I have one more teenage couple in here spending an hour trying to find  _ exactly _ the shade of blush pink to match a dress, I might lose my shit.”

Leaning against the counter, the tiger lilies and yellow tulips cradled in the crook of his arm, Tony watches him fasten one of the fiddly little boutonnieres together, lips quirked with quiet mirth.

And it is strange, the fondness that grows warm and easy in Adam’s chest for this man -- this relative strange floating in and out of his life. “You don’t want to stand around and listen to me bitch about customers,” Adam insists with a self-deprecating smirk. “You got somewhere you need to be?”

“ _ Need _ to?” Tony hums. “Probably.  _ Want  _ to? Not so much.” The admission is coupled with a shrug, rising and falling on the lilt of his accent. “All the same, you are right. I should go before it gets too late.”

Adam unbends himself from his work, the ribbons and pruned rosebuds. There is one among the cuttings, already blooming -- no good for the corsage, it will wilt too quickly. “Here.” He plucks the rosette from the counter and, before he quite realizes what he is doing, reaches out to tuck it behind Tony’s ear. “One for the road,” he says “free of charge.”

“Oh, I…” Tony turns the same shade of pink as the rose, all but stumbling over himself. Suddenly shy. “Thank you,” he manages. “Um --  _ good-bye _ .” He does not flee, not quite, but it is a close thing.

“Bye Tony!” Helene, stepping out from the back room to level a deep frown at Adam, arms folded and all-too-knowing.

“ _ What _ ?”

She lifts one fair, admonishing eyebrow and just stares.


	2. Chapter 2

And Adam must have fucked something up, because all of a sudden two weeks pass and there is no sign of Tony Balerdi.

It shouldn’t bother him, shouldn’t be worth a second thought really, but he finds himself worrying at the question again and again in his sessions with Dr. Rosshilde. Had something happened to him? Had Adam with his few social graces and many personality deficits frightened him off?

“Tell me more about him” Rosshilde prompts, resettling the notepad on her knee, pen poised. “Tony.”    

Adam shrugs. He is twitchy today, his nerves jangling with need and easily rattled. The old demons not quite silenced. He wants a fix, and as soon as the thought takes form he shoves it fiercely, mercilessly away.

“I don’t know.” And he really, really doesn’t. He has no idea what to think about Tony Balerdi, he of the Tuesday bouquets, with all of his good humor and his soft eyes. “I know there’s supposed to be _customer-employee_ _boundaries_ \--” Adam offers unimpressed air quotes for this phrase “-- but I guess… y’know he’s funny. Sweet. I kinda thought, maybe he seemed like a friend. Someone to talk to.”     A friend. He doesn’t have many of those.    

“And now,” there is a curious thoughtfulness to Rosshilde’s voice. “You fear he’s abandoned you, the way so many others in your life have done.”    

“Maybe.” Adam jiggles his knee, folds his hands into his armpits. “I don’t know. I don’t really know how to be a _person_ anymore. I mean, I’m better than I was -- but, I must have fucked something up again, right?” He cannot help but remember, Tony turning pink enough to match the rosebud Adam had tucked behind his ear. “Maybe I came on too strong? I didn’t mean anything by it, but -- fuck -- I probably scared him off. And Helene says he’s been coming there for _years_.”    

“Hm.”    

The sessions with Rosshilde do nothing to help Adam’s worrying.    

He sulks around the shop, unwilling to accept Helene’s good humor, barely courteous when he finds himself stationed in the front of shop. And, to add insult to injury, some of the hanging spider plants have inexplicably started to yellow and turn brittle.    

Adam is wrestling with the damn things, having spent the better part of the morning repotting most of them with fresh soil, carefully monitoring fertilizer and water levels, and he is in the midst of rehanging the last of the display when the doorbell chimes. He slips and the plastic pot clobbers him upside the head in a rain of loose dirt and attacking fronds.

“Motherfuck --” Adam spits dirt. “Now, look you piece of shit --”    

“I have heard that talking to plants is beneficial to their growth.” That voice; so familiar, light and mellifluous with laughter. “But I am not so sure that cursing does any good.”    

Unexpectedly, Adam’s heart leaps. “Hey! Tony!”    

“Hello Adam.” He looks good in his ever-present suit, eyes luminous.    

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Paris” Tony hums, making a slow circuit between the displays of potted plants and pre-made bouquets kept in water. “A private collection seeking appraisals on some items.”    

He has an art history degree, does appraisals for some big auction house -- Adam knows this much. More than once he has teased Tony, suggested that the Tuesday bouquets were meant to be filling up all their antique vases. 

Familiar with their routine, Adam is already pulling the tissue paper out from beneath the counter. “I thought you might have gone off and found yourself a new florist.” He’d thought a great many things in the two weeks Tony has been gone. “Traitor.”

The glimmer in his eyes makes it clear, though, that there are no hard feelings.    

When he is amused, Tony practically glows. “Yes,” he admits with a quick flash of a grin. “I fear I have been two-timing with the home and garden store six blocks over.” A hesitation. “I did not even think my absence would be noted. Nice to know that you have missed me so terribly.”    

“I have.” Adam could kick himself. _Idiot_. _Idiot_. _I-D-I-O-T_. “Well, you have been. Missed -- that is.” 

“Oh. Really?” There is none of the wry wit to Tony’s voice this time.    

And Adam makes a desperate attempt at salvage, fumbling with the plastic bouquet sleeves. “Of course. Everyone else comes in here, they just want the regular shit -- y’know? Daisies, roses, carnations, black-eyed susans. You, at least, look for the interesting ones.” 

As if to demonstrate his point, Tony has stopped to admire the birds of paradise and their bright orange fans. “Like these?”

“Yeah,” Adam agrees, gathering them up. He adds some sprigs of nasturtium for extra bursts of color, a few of the newly blooming plum-purple orchids. A bouquet of fire. “Find any worthwhile tchotchkes in the City of Light?”    

“Perhaps a few.”

And Adam is suddenly an idiot again, shaken by just how glad he is to see Tony. “Two weeks is a long time” he finds himself saying as he binds the flowers in their wrappings. “That what these are for? Because if you want apology flowers, you might want to try white orchids -- although, honestly, if you’re buying flowers every week because you’re in trouble with your girlfriend, I don’t know that I can put together any bouquet to help you fix that.”

He glances up, and there is Tony gone red in the face, his dark eyes sliding away.    

“I don’t -- no.” There is something deeply embarrassed in the way Tony hunches his shoulders, scratches unconsciously at the tip of his nose. “No apology. And, no girlfriend either.”

And then, in a rush of “ _thank you, goodbye”_ he is gone and Adam is not sure what has just transpired.    

The workroom is just behind the counter, easily within earshot, and Helene emerges from her afternoon spent hunched over bridal bouquets to stare at him. Incredulous. 

“Honestly, Adam.” She looks him up and down, arms folded sternly across her chest. “Are you really that thick?” 

“ _What_?” He must be, because he is genuinely baffled by Tony. By Helene. “What did I do?"

For a moment, Adam expects Helene might just reach over and smack him. Instead, she shakes her head slowly. Says  “I can’t believe you.”

“Helene --”

“I’m not explaining it to you, Adam.” She throws up her hands, exasperated, and turns on her heel. _Ugh_ , Adam can hear her thinking. _Men_. “It’s not my circus and definitely not my monkeys. You can finish the two-dozen bridesmaid bouquets in the back.”

It seems as good a punishment as any for his unexplained transgression.

Adam has to wait until Friday for his weekly appointment with Doctor Rosshilde and, in that time, the first seedlings of insight begin to take form.

“-- so I told him that white orchids mean a sincere apology and they’d probably be better for apologizing to his girlfriend...” He has replayed all of this, over and over again, and now he tells it to Rosshilde in the hopes that she will uncover what he has missed.

“Why bring up a girlfriend at all?” She asks, scratching out notes with her biro. “Do you ask after the relationship status of everyone who comes in to buy a bouquet of flowers?”

“No.” Adam is too quick to answer. “No, I was just… I was curious.”

Why? What would it matter?

The embarrassment glowing red at the tips of his ears. The way Tony had stumbled over his words “ _no girlfriend, either.”_ So insistent.

Rosshilde watches him silently, her expression unreadable. She will let Adam fill in the blanks on his own.

“You think Tony’s gay.”

She shrugs, recrossing her legs in the armchair. “I don’t think anything, he isn’t my client.” But Adam is thinking plenty.

“Does it matter?” Rosshilde prompts. “If he is gay?”    

Yes. For some reason it _does_ matter. Adam likes him -- Tony’s sharp wit and his quiet kindness, the excitable way he always talks with his hands, whole face animated. And Max rolls his eyes when every Tuesday rolls around and Adam bullies his way to the register. Helene says nothing, but her exasperation is more than clear.

He practices an apology -- so _rry, I didn’t mean to pry, sorry I’m such an asshole, sorry, sorry,_ _sorry_ \-- and he is ready when the bell chimes, late in the afternoon. The words are poised on his lips, and there is something resolved in Tony’s expression.

“There is no girlfriend,” he blurts.

“Okay.” Adam is not entirely sure what is happening.

“And… there is no boyfriend, either.”    

And, because Adam is apparently incapable of going more than five minutes at a time without shoving his entire foot in his mouth, he finds himself asking “then what the hell are all the flowers for?”

“The…”    

Adam waves him off. “No. Sorry. It’s not any of my business.”

But Tony leans his elbows on the counter, fixes Adam with a curious look. “I will be honest with you,” he says. And there is a particularly interesting sparkle in his umber eyes, a grin curling at the corners of his lips. “I live in a very small, little bit shitty apartment and I have tried to brighten up the space. Having plants around, you know? But --” a grimace “-- I fear I manage to _kill_ all my plants. So, cut flowers it is.”

It is not at all the explanation Adam is expecting. “No green thumb, huh?” There is nothing for it, he has to laugh. “Look -- give me one minute.” It shouldn’t be so funny, but it is and there is some part of him that is tremendously relieved at this revelation. “I swear we have one around here somewhere.”

 _I manage to kill all my plants_. Oh, Tony.

Tony watches, bemused, as Adam circles the register to pick through their displays with single-minded intent, still chuckling under his breath and shaking his head.

“Ha!” Adam unbends with a shout of triumph, a small pot cradled in his hands. “There you are.” _Astrophytum_. He offers the cactus to Tony. “Monk’s hood cactus. I know, he’s an ugly little bastard, but trust me; you keep him out of direct sunlight, add just a little bit of water every so often to keep the soil moist -- he’ll flower and bloom real nice for you.”

Tony takes the little plant skeptically, as though just touching it might be enough to induce planticide. “It will be dead within a week.”

“Would you believe I knew fuck-all about plants a year ago?” And Adam is so relieved to settle back into the familiar rhythms of their give-and-take. “Bought myself the ugliest, most pathetic-looking cactus I could find here and -- despite my best efforts to kill the thing -- it’s been thriving. My apartment is basically a greenhouse now.”

“Okay.” Tony is still eyeing the cactus warily, but he nods. Slowly, his dark eyes draw a circuitous route up to Adam’s smiling face. “I hope I do not offend you by saying this…”

"Oh, offend away.”

“You are not the sort of person one expects to find crooning over seedlings in a florist’s. Or,” Tony cocks his head, considering. “Cursing at them, as the case may be.”    

“No,” Adam has to agree. “I guess I’m probably not."

And Tony does not ask how it is that someone like Adam Jones could wind up here of all places, but Adam finds himself oddly willing to offer. The wisdom of Doctor Rosshilde that had saved him from himself, from the drugs, from diving off a bridge.

“Seemed as good a reason as any, getting up every day to make sure the plants stay alive and watered.” He shrugs. “I guess one thing just led to another.”

Tony’s eyes are soft. Easy enough, to read between the lines, to guess at some of Adam Jones’s ragged edges. And he does not pity Adam, does not offer consolations -- only quiet understanding. A nod.

“I suppose I will trust you.” He lifts the little cactus cradled in his grip. “With this.”

It is unexpectedly easy -- natural, even -- to reach across the space between them and give Tony’s shoulder a squeeze. “Keep that thing alive for two weeks and then we’ll build you up to cultivating rare orchids in your spare room in no time.”

Tony laughs, and it is a sound Adam wants to hear again and again.

The cactus lives.

“It is a miracle.”

“No,” Adam reassures him. “It’s just decent potting soil.”

When the cactus bursts with fluffly yellow blooms, Adam presents Tony with a spiral aloe he has painstakingly nursed back from death’s door. There are two mint plants. A miniature, budding crown-of-thorns.

Tony shows him pictures of the plants -- on his desk, basking in the windowsill -- and names all of them.

And Adam grows so very, very fond of him.

He cannot help but think; _maybe_...    

Helene is in the middle of counting the register, the streetlights flickering on as the evening fades into darkness. And, watching Adam out of the corner of her eye, she offers idly “be kind to him. Okay?”

“Who?” Adam, pouring fresh water into the grab-and-go bouquet buckets, frowns. “Tony? I _am_ kind.”

“No,” Helene chides. “You’re leading him on.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means he’s a customer.” Helene is firm, but not unkind. “And you’re flirting with him, and he’s going to take it the wrong way.” Adam stares at her.

“And what way is that?”    

“The way where he might start to think you have feelings for him.”    

“I don’t think my feelings are any of your goddamn business.” Instantly, Adam regrets it -- too hard, too furious. He tries again, softer this time. “If I do have feelings for him…”    

Helene sighs. “Then that’s your own ‘goddamn business’. But old habits are hard to break, Adam; I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”    

And he remembers. Her husband -- Lily’s father -- had been an addict too. And Adam is clean, he is better now. Walking the straight and narrow. But there is, and will always be, that niggling sliver of doubt.

It is so, so easy for him to fuck it all up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a terrible chapter and these boys are *dumb*

Adam spends an afternoon at the back of the greenhouse with Max, unloading the oversize bags of mulch and fertilizer and stacking them on pallets. He is sticky with sweat, the dirt clinging to his damp skin, and he drags himself up to the front of the shop for five minutes in air conditioned bliss.

It is Thursday, not a Tony day, but there he is -- standing at the counter with Helene, all shifting eyes and fidgeting hands.

“I thought you’d moved on from the bouquets Tony,” Helene is saying, securing the ribbon on her handiwork. “Not that I mind, of course --”

Tony shrugs, an awkward hitch of his shoulders. “Kaitlin has been promoted from assistant to fellow curator. I figure flowers are always a good way to celebrate.”

Helene laughs. “Knowing how much work that poor woman will be doing, you’d be better off buying her a year’s supply of coffee.” 

“I know, I know. You think she will like these?”

He holds up the bouquet for a final inspection -- frothy swirls of white gardenias filled out with baby’s breath and deep green ferns.

“I dunno.” There is a sharp, jealous pang in Adam’s chest when he wanders through the vestibule, into the shop-proper. “You trying to declare your secret love for her?”

“I…” Startled, Tony flushes brilliantly. “Adam. Hello.”

“Hey Tony.” 

His bright, russet-brown eyes dart from Adam to Helene and back again. “It is not -- no secret love, no.” And there is really no need to be explaining himself, but he insists that it is all “just a celebration for a friend.”

“Dasies and daffodils, then.” Adam brushes stray woodchips from the front of his shirt. “Friendship and new beginnings.”

Helene shoots him a distinctly unfriendly glance over her shoulder. “You’ve already paid for the bouquet, just leave that one and we’ll get you sorted.” In a huff, she snatches a new crumple of wrapping paper from beneath the counter and sets about putting together the new bouquet.

“I do not mind paying --”

“No, no, don’t even worry about it.” Adam gestures for the gardenias Tony juggles in his arms. “Hey, how’s Poirot?”

Tony, an Agatha Christie fan, has named all of his plants for characters. The cactus -- the first plant to last more than three days in his flat -- is Poirot. The crown-of-thorns dubbed Miss Marple, and the twin mint plants Tommy and Tuppence.

He hands over the bouquet. “Flowering beautifully.” 

“Good.” 

“Oh!” Struck by a thought, Tony lifts his eyebrows, reaching to pluck something from the bouquet. “I did not fill out the card.” 

It’s one of the little glossy ones that they clip to plastic stems, proclaiming  _ congratulations _ in swirly font. Tony scribbles something on the back. 

“There,” he proclaims, tucking it back into the bouquet in the crook of Adam’s arm, leaning in close. “Perfect.” And Adam might imagine the faint hint of a suggestion when Tony glances up through his eyelashes. He thinks,  _ maybe… _ and  _ is this…? _

So easy, to close the space between them. To catch Tony’s smiling, nervous mouth against his own and kiss him properly.

Helene is at his elbow before he can even think to speak.

“Here you are, Tony. How’s this one suit?”

She has arranged them artfully, the yellow eyes of the daisies and the daffodil petals bright and glowing against white sprigs of baby’s breath and ferns.

“Beautiful,” Tony assures her, bending to kiss Helene’s cheek when she passes him the finished bouquet with it’s satin ribbon, the same shade of yellow as the daffodils. “As always.” 

“Give Kaitlin my love.”

“I will. Thank you, Helene.” And Adam certainly doesn’t imagine the hesitation -- the soft flush of shyness -- when Tony turns to him. “Adam.” The words stumble on his lips. “I should go... Before I am late…”

“See you Tuesday,” Helene calls. 

And then he is gone with the chime of the door and Adam is left holding the white gardenias with all their loaded meaning, caught on the soft shine of desire in Tony’s eyes.

He might have kissed him...

“What did he write on the card?”

Adam shakes himself, the reverie disappearing behind his eyes. “Dunno.”

Plucking the card from the bouquet he flips it over, examines Tony’s narrow, slanting scribble. Ten digits -- a phone number. A heart.

_ Oh _ .

Helene, on tip-toe, leans in to examine the card held numbly in his hand. “Oh,” she says, bemused. “Huh.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Helene.” He is well aware of her concerns, of the recriminations she might offer -- he has recited them all to himself over and over again between therapy sessions, thinking  _ I love him _ and  _ fuck, I shouldn’t _ . “I really don’t.”

She frowns. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were.”

A tut. “Well, I certainly don’t know what he sees in you --” Adam knows she is only teasing, but it still stings. She is right. He has asked himself the same question. “But good on him for making a move.” 

“You think --?”

The thought hits like a jolt of white lightning to the heart.

“Adam, you’d think the sun shines out of your ass the way he goes on about you.” Helene says it as though it is the most obvious thing in the world, exasperated that she even need clarify something so apparent in the first place. “And you’re no better -- I’d have to be blind not to see the way you look at him.”

And… Adam really has no idea what to do with that information.

He has Tony’s phone number.

Tony has given him his phone number wrapped up in a bouquet of white gardenias and he had  _ known _ what they had meant. Because Adam had told him. Secret love.

“Oh shit,” he says. Astounded. “What do I do?”

He will screw this up.

He does  _ not _ want to screw this up.

Looking him slowly up and down, Helene’s eyes soften. “You really like him, don’t you?” 

“I do.” He is almost afraid to admit it.

“Well,” Helene smiles, suddenly warm. “You have his number now. And you do know how to dial a phone, yes?”

And it should be that simple -- it could be -- but Adam cannot help but hear the litany of mistakes, of fuckups, catastrophes, and flaws that he replays over and over again when he cannot sleep. 

“What the hell would he want with someone like me, Helene?” Adam can’t quite keep his voice from cracking. “ _ Honestly _ . I’m a fuck up, an addict. And Tony is…” Funny. Intelligent. Gorgeous. Pure sunshine. Adam says none of these things aloud. “I don’t know. But what do I have to offer to someone like him?”

Helene rubs his arm, sympathetic. “More than you think,” she promises him softly. “Tony isn’t the type to give his heart easily. If he’s fallen for you it’s obviously because he’s seen something worthwhile.”

Adam takes a deep breath, lets some of the tension ease from between his shoulders. “You think so?”

“ _ I _ think you’re a shit,” Helene teases, a sparkle of affection in her hazel eyes. “But I suppose I do like you well enough, too.”

“Fuck off.”

He saves the number in his phone. Tony’s number. And he thinks about texting -- about what he would say, about how to make Tony smile. About how to say  _ ‘I think I’m in love with you’. _

All of a sudden it is half-past eight o’clock and the shop is dark. Lit only by the deep orange glow of the heat lamps. Adam has his earbuds in -- does not hear the door chime -- sweeping the detritus of shed leaves and dropped petals from the floor of  _ Jean Luc’s Garden Florals _ . There is a cough -- soft and embarrassed, at his back.

Tony. Lit orange by the lamp coils and half in shadow; still, Adam can clearly see the uneasy furrow of his brow. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it is barely above a whisper. “The door was unlocked -- I thought…”

“Hey. Tony.” Adam hesitates. “You okay?”

“Adam, I…” Tony winces. Looks for a moment like he might swallow his own tongue. “Um. Can we talk?”

“How’d the flowers go over?” Adam leans his broom against the register.

“The flowers?” Tony blinks at him, uncomprehending. “ _ Oh _ . Oh -- they were lovely.”

Strange enough to see Tony on a Thursday morning, stranger still for him to reappear in the darkness just after closing. 

Adam says “everything all right?”

“I think…” It is there -- poised on Tony’s lips. A hundred thousand things to say; questions and apologies and his own burning embarrassment. “I owe you an apology.” The words escape him in a rush. “I should not have -- it was totally inappropriate of me, giving you my phone number.”

To think that Adam’s charm, his friendliness, had been anything more than politeness… Tony could throttle himself for his own stupidity.

“Tony --”

“I’m sorry. Please, forget it ever happened.”

“ _ Tony _ .” 

And Tony will not look at him, his face hot with self-recrimination. What had he been  _ thinking?! _ Foolish. Absurd. Surely, he had been gripped by some form of madness -- a temporary insanity that had made him so mortifyingly brazen.

It kills Adam, but he cannot bring himself to be surprised. Of course Tony would regret it, would come to his senses and rethink the absurdity of making overtures, of ever wanting anything to do with the likes of Adam Jones. He does his best to shrug it off.

“Consider it forgotten.” Adam’s heart sinks like lead, settling in the pit of his stomach. Still he cannot help but entertain the hope, can only offer an awkward unspoken entreaty of his own. “Hey -- while you’re here -- I’ve got a new addition for you.”

He hadn’t meant to do this so soon. But he reaches behind the counter, produces the little clay pot with its tuft of purple violets.

“Oh… It is lovely.” There is a faint, uneasy quaver in Tony’s voice. He draws a fingertip over the soft, royal purple petals. “So. Daisies for friendship, daffodils for new beginnings -- what do violets mean?”

An admission, of sorts.

Adam shrugs. “Look it up, and next time you can tell me.”

“I will.” Tony favors him with a small, quizzical smile. They can move past this -- can forget he was ever so foolish as to make advances. “This one -- any advice to keep it alive?”

“Yeah.” Adam’s crystal-blue eyes are piercing in the dim, fixed on Tony. His voice dreadfully, wonderingly soft. “Yeah, this one’s kinda particular but easy enough to manage. Make sure the soil stays moist, use lukewarm water and let it sit for forty-eight hours before watering.”

He watches the play of feeling over Tony’s open face, the lift of his eyebrows and the softness of his mouth. Something unsaid, uncertain. And Adam wants so very much to close the distance between them. To kiss him. But it is always so dangerous -- so disastrous -- when Adam wants.

At last, Tony says “okay.” Nods. “Okay, I think I can manage that.”

When Tony leaves, taking the violets with him, neither one of them is quite satisfied. There is a knot forming in the pit of Adam’s stomach -- fear twisting his guts. Has he made another terrible mistake?

The worry does not leave him. 

Well into the night and all through the next day, Adam wonders exactly what he has done. What on earth this is catalyzing between them. He mixes up orders, overwaters the plants. Was he too obtuse? Should he have hinted more, hinted less, at his interest in Tony? Has he scared him off? Will Tony understand?

Has he fucked everything up?

Late in the afternoon, he risks texting Tony.

_ Hope the violets are settling in nicely? _

No response.

_ Figure out what they mean yet? _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk, folks. Does anything actually happen in this fic?

It is his day off, and it is early enough -- dawn barely more than a suggestion beyond the thin curtains -- that when his phone rings, Adam rolls over in bed and almost doesn’t answer it. But he has a brief glimpse of the screen through one cracked eye, of the name he had typed into his contacts list barely more than forty-eight hours ago, and then he is scrambling to answer before Tony is sent to voicemail.

“Tony!” He scrubs a hand over his face, trying quickly to turn the mush of his grey matter into coherent thoughts. “Hey, how’d you --? How are you?”

_ “Thoughts of love.” _

“What?”

_ “Purple violets.” _ Tony speaks softly into the phone, his voice barely more than a whisper, trembling faintly.  _ “they mean  _ thoughts of love _.” _

And -- oh -- Adam remembers now. “Yeah.” 

Silence.

Faintly, he is aware of Tony breathing on the other end of the line. Neither one of them knows quite what is supposed to happen now.

“You okay?”

It might just be static in the connection, it might be Tony sighing. At last, his voice in Adam’s ear says  _ “I think, perhaps we should talk.” _ And there is a hesitation there, his voice strangely fragile. _ “Face to face.” _

“Yeah.” Adam knuckles the last of the sleep from his eyes, tossing off the bed sheets. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” 

“ _ You are at the shop? _ ”

“No -- no, today’s my day off.” And Adam is sure this is not how it is supposed to go. He should be flirting, teasing, saying all the right things to make Tony laugh and blush on the other end of the line. But, somehow, he finds himself tongue-tied and stumbling through the conversation like an idiot. “Can I meet you somewhere?”

_ “Yes.”  _ And he can hear the way Tony settles into this suggestion -- making arrangements, putting plans into place. Adam has not known him long, does not know him as well as he would like, but it is so very Tony; competent, capable, organized.  _ “Are you far from Park Square?” _

“Not at all.”

_ “Okay. Ten o’clock?” _

The bedside clock reads 8:35. “Okay.”

Another long, uncertain silence.

Adam says “see you then” and cannot help the faint, fond smile that softens at the corners of his mouth.

“ _ Yes.” _ Tony coughs. _ “See you then _ .”

In fact, Adam is further from the Park Square gardens than he had assured Tony -- a good half hour’s walk, less if he jogs it. But he is certain he would have said yes to any location, to any hesitating proposal Tony might have offered, and that is something in and of itself; the words ‘Adam Jones’ and ‘agreeable’ are not exactly synonymous.

Park Square.

It is neutral territory -- not Jean Luc’s shop where they perform the song-and-dance of customer service, not the fraught expectations of an invitiation to Tony’s flat. They can talk, wander the green among the carefully cultivated rose bushes.

Everything will be all right.

He is circling the park with his hands jammed into the pockets of his blue jeans at eight past ten when he spots Tony across the lawn, looking all around and clearly trying to pretend he is not waiting to be stood-up in his patch of dappled sunlight. He is in chinos, a light button down; more casual than Adam has ever seen him and still more well-dressed than Adam will ever be. Adam waits until he is only a few feet away to lift his hand, calling Tony’s name in greeting.

“Adam.” Strange, the pair of them out in the real world -- none of the safety of their encounters in the flower shop. The anxiety is clear in the honey-brown of Tony’s eyes. “Thank you for coming,” he says as though this is a business meeting and not…

Whatever this is.

“Of course,” Adam says. “Of course -- you wanna walk and talk?”

Tony nods.

The park is a lush expanse of greenery; immaculately manicured lawn, perfectly cultivated flowerbeds. Adam brushes his fingers over the velvet softness of red-and-white rose petals, waits for Tony -- mouth twisted up into a knot, hands fluttering in useless, aborted gestures -- tries to find the right words to speak.

“I…” A grimace. “I really do not know what to say.”

Adam shrugs, but he is hyper-aware of the knots tied into his intestines, the sick rumble of anxiety. “That’s okay.” 

He can already hear it --  _ I’m sorry. This was all a mistake.  _ Tony’s gentle rejections.  _ I never should have asked you here, given you my number. I could never love someone like you -- a fuck-up, a disaster. _

There are a hundred thousand reasons why Tony would say ‘no’. 

Why he  _ should _ .

Instead, when Tony says ‘no’, it is with trepidation writ across his brow and resolve bright and serious in his eyes. “No, it isn’t. Perhaps I should…” And in lieu of any more half-started apologies, Tony lifts himself onto his tip-toes beneath the shifting shadow-puppets of oak leaves and presses a quick, crooked kiss against Adam’s mouth.

It is sweet -- near perfect -- and all too brief.

Adam, grinning and giddy, watches the flush creep from the collar of Tony’s shirt, the way his cinnamon-dark eyes slide sideways. The taste of him is still warm, singing against Adam’s lips. “Okay,” he murmurs. “That’s -- okay.”

More than okay.

But the swell of joy bursts when Tony -- all distress and guilty eyes -- shakes his head hard. “No,” he insists. “No, it is not okay. This is all…  _ todo está al revés _ .” What has he done? Foolish. Stupid. And he is babbling confused, frantic apologies. “I am your customer -- I am not... It is totally inappropriate for me to -- I should not be falling in love with you...”

Has Adam heard him right?

“Falling in love…” He repeats the words faintly, stunned. “Tony.  _ Tones _ , hey.”

Tony stares at him.

Certain now, Adam catches his knuckles beneath the curve of Tony’s chin, strokes his thumb over the smoothness of his cheek. And they are in public, in the middle of the park where anyone might see them wrapped up in one another, and he does not care. “I think maybe it’s a little late for ‘not falling in love’, don’t you?”

Oh. Tony cracks; a watery laugh and a tremulous, uncertain smile. “I suppose so.”

“Besides,” Adam smiles, gentle. “I’m not working now.”

“That is true…”

Adam draws the pad of his thumb along the curve of Tony’s lower lip, his perfect slender mouth. And Adam has daydreamed, has imagined kissing that lopsided, delightful smile more than once now. “Can I kiss you again?”

So, so easy to make Tony blush. “I would like that.”

Adam does.

He takes his time; kisses the corner of Tony’s nervous, smiling mouth, and draws him gently deeper. Tony’s fingers are fisted in his shirtfront and Adam’s hands are in his hair, cradling the curve of his skull, and he feels the way that Tony softens and melts against him -- eager, elated.

With their bodies warm and electric and connected, it is so easy to forget that they are in public. That Adam is kissing him in the middle of the park, standing in the middle of the lush green lawn where anyone can see. And something old and long untouched inside Adam aches when he has to pull away from Tony, when they need to breathe again.

“So…”

Tony beams up at him, his lips pressed tightly together as if he is trying to hold on to the taste of Adam, the hum of the kiss on his lips. “So,” he echoes softly, the tips of his ears turning pink when he looks away. “You should know -- I do not normally do this.”

“What?” This is an entirely different kind of high; a singing in his veins that has nothing to do with amphetamines and everything to do with the way Tony’s smile makes his stomach turn cartwheels. “You mean you don’t kiss relative strangers you meet in flower shops every day?”

And Tony has no right to look so utterly delighted by his teasing -- by  _ him _ of all people. “Yes.” He reconsiders, bobbling his head. “And no. Really, I have not done much kissing of anyone for a long time.”

“Oh.”

A little curl of panic unwinds itself in Adam’s belly; anticipating the rejection, the apologies. Knowing that Tony is worth so much more than anything Adam can offer him.

But Tony -- bashful -- watches Adam through his eyelashes. Runs his tongue along his lower lip. “I do not think I would mind kissing men I discover in flower shops more often. Though, we are not strangers, really.”

His bright, beatific smile is enough to quiet the pinpricks of anxiety that itch beneath Adam’s skin. He cocks his head. “No?”

“You do not think so?” Tony frowns -- he had been so sure of the rapport between them, of the good humor and grumbling and fond banter over the vague particulars of their histories in the sunlit storefront. At the very least, he had thought they might be friends. Had harbored a silent hope for something more.

“Nah, you’re right” Adam assures him. He does not think he has ever been in love like this before -- not really -- not so fast. “Maybe  _ strange _ , but not strangers. Not anymore. So -- what happens now?”

It is all so fast, and like Adam said, so strange. What are they? What is this? And where are they meant to go from here?

“Now, I believe a proper date is in order.” A quick grin, soft eyes glittering with mischief, and this is what it looks like -- Tony flirting. Adam remembers so many Tuesday afternoons, so many looks and smiles and singularly perfect moments.

“Oh?” He cannot help but tease Tony, rile him up and ruffle him. “This isn’t a date, then?”

“This is…” Tony hums, considering. “I am not sure what this is.”

“A decent start?”

Tony nods. “Yes. I think so.”

Adam thumbs the stubborn jut of his chin, wondering, puzzling over how this could be possible. He might be dreaming. But he offers “how’s dinner sound? We can make reservations somewhere absurdly fancy, I’ll pick you up with a dozen roses -- the whole nine yards.”

Anything. Everything. For the first time in a long time, the world seems endless; so much more than the flower shop, than the chaos of his flat.

Tony loops his arm through Adam’s, leading him away from their patch of shade and out across the park. “You bring me roses I will have nowhere to put them -- my flat is already overrun with your plants.” He is comfortable at Adam’s side, as though he has always belonged here, tucked against him. “How about simple? There is a wonderful Mediterranean place just down the block.”

Adam laughs. “Is this you asking me out?”

Beaming, Tony offers him a shrug. “Perhaps -- a lunch date. And,  _ perhaps _ ... after I might invite you to my flat. Just to visit the plants, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” But Adam hears the promise in the words.

He will still bring Tony roses. Bouquets of hydrangeas and orchids and sleek, brightly-colored tulips. And Tony will laugh and kiss him and they will walk home together to the shitty little flat where Tony’s plants will join the greenery that covers every surface, where Tony will arrange their flowers in one of the chipped antique vases.


End file.
